The weekend was tragic in Colorado’s high country, and conditions are expected to make things riskier in the next few days. Another round of heavy snow and high winds will roll from the mountains to the plains overnight and Monday morning.

Saturday, Bob Mydans, a 64-year-old assistant U.S. attorney in Denver, died while snowshoeing in Rocky Mountain National Park. This morning on Flattop Mountain in the park, a 54-year-old woman from Estes Park was found unresponsive off a snowshoeing trail. Her name has not been released.

Early this afternoon, a 15-year-old girl from Wellesley, Mass., was killed when she skied into a tree on an expert run at Copper Mountain. Later in the afternoon two people were killed when a plane from Texas went down short of the runway in a snowstorm at Yampa Valley Regional Airport in Hayden.

With several more weeks to go in the snow season, Colorado is at 13 ski- and snowboarding-related deaths. The record, set in 2008, is 17.

With up to 10 inches of snow expected in the northern and central mountains from a low pressure system passing over the state tonight and tomorrow, more people will test the powdery slopes and gorgeous backcountry.

The Colorado Avalanche Information Center in Boulder said today that the risk of a slide is “considerable” across most of the state’s mountains, except in the northern San Juans, where the risk is rated “high.”

“Colder temperatures and moderate winds will generate some tender wind slabs on Monday, which will trend the avalanche danger upward,” according to the center’s forecast.

With weeks to go before the end of the snow season, Colorado has already exceeded its 10-year average of 5.5 avalanche deaths a year. The state picked up its sixth fatality when 37-year-old Australian Andre Hartlief was killed in an avalanche on Wolf Creek Pass in Mineral County,

The message is clear: be careful.

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The National Storm Chasers Convention, ChaserCon, is under way at the Red Lion Central Denver hotel this weekend, and the size of the audience –a record 350 chasers — is a testament to how popular the hobby has become.

But is that growth a good thing, or does it just make twisters all the more dangerous?

Stick with me. TV’s shows like the newly cancelled “Storm Chasers” on Discovery is catnip to those of us who can’t enough of nature’s awesome fury.

But do these shows embolden yahoos with cell phone cameras to think they’re the next Reed Timmer, the Michigan-born Oklahoman who’s the Tim Tebow of twister wrangling and the breakout star of “Storm Chasers.” The object of my bro-mance even has his own beer commercial.

In reality, popular culture publicizes and glamorizes a very difficult hobby that can easily kill you. We will never know how many tornado deaths are the end result of somebody aiming an iPhone at a cyclone, putting Youtube glory ahead of common sense.

The Colorado mountains have another shot at some much-needed snow Tuesday. Bring it. The statewide snowpack is still nearly 25 percent off its 30-year average. Snowpacks in the mountains range from a decent 81 percent in southwest Colorado to an alarming 64 percent in the northwest part of the state.

The San Juan mountains — including Crested Butte, Ridgway, Ouray and Telluride — could pick up 6 to 8 inches tomorrow. A winter weather advisory is in effect from 6 a.m. Tuesday to 6 a.m. Wednesday.

Snow showers are expected across the mountas, but little if any should reach the Front Range. Denver is expected to be sunny with a high near 38 Tuesday, but there’s a 30 percent chance of snow after 11 p.m. At most, the metro region would pick up a half-inch or less, the National Weather Service says.

Denver has a 20 percent chance of snow showers until about 11 a.m. Wednesday. Temperatures are expected to vary from the mid-30s to the lower 40s through the weekend, with sunny skies each day.

The normal high temperature for each day this week is 46 degrees.

It’s been cold this month. The daily average temperature has been 22.9 degrees, more than 8 degrees colder than normal. Eight days have seen highs below freezing. Saturday bottomed out at 3 degrees. My bones are still aching.

In other news, it’s 108 days until June.

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The storm should start winding down in northern Colorado this afternoon, especially north of Fort Collins and Greeley, according to the National Weather Service. Elsewhere, the storm is likely to continue until midnight, then taper off from west to east.

And while a blizzard warning for the eastern plains has been cancelled, the winter storm warning that includes the metro area, has been extended until 5 a.m. with updated snow totals now looking like they could reach up to 28 inches in Elbert and Lincoln Counties, including areas of Castle Rock and Larkspur.

Get out your anti-depressants, snow bunnies. February offers little hope for Denver’s low-snow winter, according to the monthly outlook from the National Weather Service.

Neither history nor the forecast is on our side. Of Denver’s nine snow-likely months, February ranks sixth in total snow. Only October, May and September get less. Over the last 30 years, the shortest month has averaged just 5.7 inches of snow. January, the fourth-snowiest month, usually provides 7 inches. This year, it provided the city less than 5, more than 50 percent of it on one day.

Snowpack is down statewide, just 72 percent of Colorado’s 30-year average. The South Platte River basin, which includes Denver, is at 80 percent of average. They’re hurting worse in the mountains — where snowpack is vital to filling slopes with skiers and boarders in the winter, rivers with rafters in the spring and reservoirs with most of the state’s year-round drinking and irrigation supply in the summer.

The basins of the Gunnison, San Miguel, Dolores, Animas and San Juan rivers are at 74 percent of average, and the Colorado is at 71 percent. The basins of the Yampa and White rivers are at just 63 percent.

Hope is over the horizon. March is Colorado’s snowiest month with an average of 11.7 inches of snow. And remember 2003? March brought 31 inches of snow in just three days. A year earlier, statewide snowpack had peaked at just 53 percent of average. In 1977 snowpack topped out at just 46 percent.

It has been a long time since Colorado had a lot of snow in February. Among the top 5 snowiest Februarys, the most recent was in 1960, when Denver received 18.3 inches during the month. The least snowiest February on record was just three years ago. The city got only a trace of snow in February 2009, and 2005 ranks third for the least snow, with a half-inch for the whole month.

Snow is in the forecast for the next few days, but the National Weather Service says don’t get your hopes up.

“A rebound to above-normal warmth is expected for the remaining three quarters of February 2012 with precipitation expected to be near to below seasonal normals,” according to the dismal monthly outlook.

Do stormy skies set your heart and mind racing? Do you want to help save lives in your community?

If so, the National Weather Service needs you.

The agency’s Boulder office has announced 11 free training courses for Colorado weather spotters beginning Feb. 19 at the Red Lion Inn-Denver Central and concluding May 8 at the Elbert County Fairgrounds in Kiowa. Other classes are planned in Frederick, Westminster, Haxtun, Sterling, Akron, Fort Morgan, Greeley and Loveland.

Basic training takes about 90 minutes, enough to become a certified Skywarn severe weather spotter, but passionate weather nerds, present company included, can stay longer for more advanced instruction.

Volunteers can learn the basics of storm development, identifying storm potential, the kinds of information they should collect and report, and how to report it, as well as basic severe weather safety.

Helping out forecasters is fun, but it’s also vital, guiding the National Weather Service in its warnings that help save lives when tornadoes and other severe weather bear down on spotters’ own communities. The agency says its 290,000 trained severe weather spotters are our nation’s first line of defense against deadly storms.

Anyone is eligible, and current volunteers include all kinds of people — police officers and firefighters, dispatchers, emergency workers, utility crews, hospital and nursing homes staff, school officials, ranchers and retirees. The only common denominator is having a heart for helping others.

For more information, contact National Weather Service meteorologist Bob Glancy at Robert.Glancy@noaa.gov.

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The white stuff, thankfully, is taking another shot at the Colorado mountains Monday, with 4 to 16 inches expected from Aspen to Steamboat Springs.

The National Weather Service said this afternoon that two fast-moving Pacific storms will hit the state from different directions between midnight Sunday and midnight Monday.

The first wave of cold and moisture rolls in overnight from the desert southwest, and the counter-punch arrives Monday afternoon from the northwest “bringing a quick burst of snow mainly to the northern and central mountains and another surge of colder air,” with lows from the single digits to minus-5 in the mountains, according to the National Weather Service.

Driving will be a pain, with wind gusts up to 50 mph in some areas, but the snow is badly needed. The basins of the Gunnison, Colorado, Yampa and White rivers — the state’s belt of ski resorts — is weathering dismal snowpacks between 56 and 58 percent of their 30-year averages.

Denver is doing just fine on snow. The city typically receives 7 inches in January. Through Sunday, roughly the half-way point, the city had received 4.1 inches, according to the National Weather Service.

The snow that fills most reservoirs and feeds the state’s vital skiing, rafting, fishing and agriculture industries takes place in the mountains, however.

Monday’s storms aren’t expected to deliver much snow to Denver. The city has a 20 percent chance of snow from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday. The metro region should see only a passing shower or two, and not much accumulation, forecasters said this evening.

Denver is expected to have a high temperature of 37 degrees Monday, after topping out at 56 this afternoon. Tuesday, temperatures might reach only 38 degrees, before rebounding into the mid-50s on Wednesday.

Sunny, warm weather is forecast for the city into the weekend, before the next chance of snow, a slight one, Saturday night, the National Weather Service says.

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The snow is rolling on out of here, but the cold will stay a little longer, like an obnoxious guest.

The thermometer reads 6 degrees tonight, but the wind-chill could press down to minus-5, according to the National Weather Service.

They’re two different things. Temperature is more important to everything but but people. Exposed skin measures wind-chill, specifically how cold it feels to the thermoreceptors of the skin’s dermis layer.

A breeze makes a big difference, both in pressing the issue of cold and sweeping away the skin’s thermal benefits. So gusts up to 17 mph overnight are to blame for the 11-degree difference between temperature and wind-chill before morning.

Speaking of weather data, today was statistically pretty normal, based on the afternoon measure.

The high temperature at Denver International Airport was 45 degrees and the mid-day low was 16. That’s just 1 degree off the 30-year-average high for the date, and 2 degrees colder than the normal low.

The twist is in the timing. Denver’s high today was set just after midnight, and the early low was set at 3:59 p.m., just before the official 4 p.m. recording.

At 8:54 p.m., however, the mercury had slipped to 6 degrees in Denver, according to the National Weather Service.

Temperatures are expected to rebound into the upper 30s across the metro region Thursday, with seasonal 40s Friday and the 50s this weekend.

So far this month, Denver has had an average daily temperature of 37.8 degrees — 7 degrees warmer than the 30-year average. Daily high temperatures have averaged a balmy 50.1 degrees so far this month, where normal is between 43 and 44 degrees.

And despite the recent snow, Denver is still nearly one-third behind the normal water-value of precipitation for January. The city has had 0.08 inch of moisture — the melted value of snow — which is 0.04 below normal, according to federal weather data. The average water value for all of January’s snow is 0.36 inches.

The average January snowfall total in Denver over the past three decades is 7 inches. February averages 7.5 inches. March, the city’s snowiest month, averages 11.5, followed by April with 9 inches.

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If that prediction holds, it would mark the coldest day in Denver since a minus-5 on Dec. 6.

It’s been a mild late fall and early winter. The city hasn’t seen a single-digit low since 9 degrees on Dec. 23. The normal daily high during this week is about 44 degrees, and the normal low is about 18.

Chief meteorologist Kathy Sabine at our news partner, 9News, said the cold front from the northwest will push ahead of this fast-moving storm tomorrow, moving out Wednesday night. The cold will arrive early, pushing temperatures down when they normally would be going up. The Weather Channel said Denver should be at 20 degrees at 6 a.m. 16 degrees by noon and 10 degrees by evening. The snow is expected to arrive about 11 a.m.

Keep your pets indoors, folks.

Thursday should be clear, but still quite nippy. The early morning hours will include wind-chills as cold as minus-4, under a temperature of about 12 degrees, but the day should warm up to about 35, the National Weather Service says.

Seasonal temperatures in the 40s are expected this weekend, continuing into the second and final week of the National Western Stock Show at Interstate 70 and Brighton Boulevard.

Bundle up tomorrow, but better days are ahead.

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Forecast Colorado is your place for the latest breaking weather news for Denver and Colorado, featuring the latest forecasts, road conditions and closures — with an occasional detour into meterological science, trivia and oddities.